Sunday, January 29, 2017

As any fan of the old Fimir models
know, they are moderately scarce and at times command ridiculously expensive
prices. It can be financially daunting if your trying to assemble a unit
let alone a army!There are a few
alternative models out there but not many and not as closed in design to the
originals as I would like.One option is
to do something similar to Mr Saturday’s Fimir Project and create some models
through kit basing and sculpting/producing my own heads.I would really like to take that route but
let’s be honest, I’ve had these figures for well over 6-8 years so if I wait to
do that this army will never get done.Another option is some allies to bulk out the army.One of my thoughts was that a unit of
lizardmen would be a great fit.The
Fimir are bog/swamp dwellers so what better choice than some fellow swamp
denizens: alligators!

Enter the great
Sebeki by Crocodile Games from their Aegyptus game system.

I picked up a few of these over the last
couple of years. Chris Fitzpatrick’s sculpts are fantastic
and I’ve really liked these since I first laid eyes on them.This turns out to be a great way to utilize
them without having to get into a new system.They do have a bit more Egyptian feel/iconography than I would like so I
will have to decide if can remove most of that and remodel them or just live with
it.These are not as ready for paint as I
originally thought.The one fellow needs
his weapon glued, a few need a little “green stuffing” around seams and joints,
and I need to evaluate the basing.

The 25mm’s
seem a bit small and as you can see from the size comparison the line troops
are almost as big as the Fimir which are on 40mm’s.

The Beloved of Sobek figure is actually
very large and is definitely appropriate for a 40mm.They also didn’t rank up well at all on the
smaller bases.I’m not planning on painting
these until 2nd quarter or later so I have some time to get the base
issues figured out. The Fimir and their allies should see paint in the near
future!

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

This is the last figure of the Fimir unit that I've been
posting about recently.This fellow has
the distinction of being the only non-converted figure in the group.And for good reason, he is the only figure
that isn’t a knock off re-cast. As I mentioned
in my starting post this whole project sprung out of my frustration with an ebay purchase that turned out to be re-cast figures.I had
originally purchased the very same head/body/tail combination of warlord with axe and mace with a Head 1 and Tail 1 back in the day
when they were still in production.

So in
honor of his authenticity I decided to leave him unmodified.This is the original pose that all the
other models are based off of.I did an initial
color test on this lad to see if I liked a blue skinned look and to be honest
I don’t know that I care for it.

Now truth
be told I haven’t given it any washes or additional work in years. That might improve it to my eye, but I'm still not sure I'll go this route.

I’m going to do some more research on line and specifically
study the wonderful WD spread that has painted models in it and see what I have in the paint rack to match.

I’m thinking, as bog dwellers that
they probably would have evolved with earth tones like brown or tan or light
green. I welcome any input!

Sunday, January 15, 2017

I received a weighty package in the mail the other day. It came from España
and I realized my long and arduous wait was over, my miniatures from Diego’s
Space Raiders 2 Kickstarter had arrived!

The wait was arduous only because I kept seeing all these posts from
other supporters who had received their deliveries and I was turning green with
envy. My order was pretty large which meant I had to wait for all the figures to be produced before it could ship. It is quite a mountain of
lead!

I got a little bit of everything
in this motley crew of space riffraff. I
picked up some of the wonderful Picsean/Fishmen-in-Space figures along with the
Space Minotaurs, Space Orks, Zoat like figures, and Space Fimir!

I’m looking forward to switching gears and getting
into some Sci-Fi themed miniatures by painting up some mercenaries and war bands. My only concern is that most of them lack a slota-base tab. I don't have much experience in pin/basing miniatures so I'll be developing some new skills. Good news is that it opens up some new options for more detailed bases. I'll be doing a more in depth review of the figures once I get them ready to paint.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Unfortunately for my wallet I stumbled upon Kickstarter back in early 2016. It has a been a great source of "new old" mins and areal boon for my miniature collection. It has also motivated me and kicked my painting back
into gear. While I’ve beensomewhat idle
blogging wise over the last month I haven’t just been sitting around! Here are some WIP's of the mins from my first foray
into Kickstarter from Diehard Miniatures’ first campaign.

I saw some posts of Tim and company’s
miniatures on a couple of different sites and simply had to have some. I have always been a fan of WHFB Slann and
the background of a star empire fallen into more savage times. I picked up a couple of their frogs-in-space Eru-Kin.

My goal was to paint them up in a NASA white
and orange space suit color scheme with a Yellow-Banded Poison Dart Frog pattern.

I don’t
know that I stuck to the plan very well and I feel like the color palette got a
bit larger than I wanted. I'm also concerned that if I do the black banding on the exposed skin I'll loose some of the detail. At this point they will only have a yellow skin tone.

I tried to
pull it back and paint over some areas instead of stripping and repainting
them. I’m okay with their progress.

I’m struggling with getting the white to look
the way I want. I’m going to try and do
some black lining and see how it turns out.
These guys are far from done but I hope to wrap them up well before the figures from the Diehard
Kickstarter 2 arrive!

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Happy New Year! Last blog of 2016 set up some goals for 2017, the last of
which was to re-name the blog.Full
disclosure, that was a cheap softball goal given I had already done most of the
work!My wonderful wife often accuses me
of having adult ADD so I chalk my entry into the blogosphere to this!I got inspired by several of the Oldhammer
blogs and jumped in with both feet.I’m
sure that we all what to have a witty, impressive blog title and I got busy
brainstorming names but many great ones were already claimed: Realm of Chaos
80’s, Leadplague, Oldhammer in Toronto (if I was in the Great White North),
Eldritch Epistles (not even sure what that means but Steve already laid claim
to it!), etc…. I quickly devolved into writers block and came up with the
wonderfully lackluster and underwhelming Miniature Assault.Best I could come up with at the moment.After a year I still hadn’t come up with much until I came across an
article with a great quote and Wham there it was, the name I had been looking
for.

Who was it that provided the new title? None other than one of the greatest Roman military leaders and politicians, Julius
Caesar. What better person to grab a quote from. Especially one that has a gaming link. According to historians Suetonius and Frances Titchener, the Roman patrician pronouncement as he crossed the River Rubicon back into Roman territory "Alea
iacta est" ("The
die is cast") in reference to his future as he sought to become dictator. Caesar was said to have borrowed the phrase from Meander, his favourite Greek writer of comedy; the phrase appears in “Ἀρρηφόρος” (Arrephoros,) (or possibly “The Flute-Girl”). Regardless of where it came from I thought it would be a great blogg title. So now it is so! Well that is if I can figure out how to get the name changed on Blogger! 1 down 51 posts to go!

About Me

I'm a late 40's gamer that grew up in the golden age of miniatures and RPGs in the 80's. I cut my teeth on the likes of TSR's 2nd edition D&D and AD&D, SJG's pocket editions of OGRE and Car Wars and the glorious 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Rogue Trader from GWS. Long live the games and hair metal of the 80's!